Here is an interesting post by Ian Schindler, It is not directly related to holobionts, but it deals with the way we see the world. Knowledge is something that needs to flow freely among people, just as information flows freely among the nodes of all good holobionts. Ian Schindler teaches at the Capitole University in Toulouse (Fr) and is also a member of the "proud holobionts" discussion group. If you wish to join the group, write me at ugo.bardi(swinglette)unifi.it.
A post by IAN SCHINDLER:
What is science? To me science is trying to figure out God's will playing by the brutal rules of science which are:
1. God's will is explained using laws.
2. The laws must be precise and significant.
3. If your theory does not agree with empirical evidence, it's wrong.
An immediate corollary of rule 3 is that it is impossible to prove a scientific theory is correct. It is only possible to prove that it is wrong. It is wrong if it doesn't agree with observation. The scientific theories we accept are those that have not yet been proven wrong.
Richard Feynman (who was perhaps not such a fine man but he was a fine physicist and entertaining) on this topic: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp20d8
Remark: The law of supply and demand violates what Feynman calls vagueness and I call significance. It cannot be proved wrong being compatible with all possible price data. Thus nothing can be deduced from it. One can substitute "The price is the will of God" for the law of supply and demand.
Throughout history, good scientists have been spectacularly wrong about many things. In some sense, the smarter they are, the better they can be at fooling themselves. Max Planck (who chose to publish Einstein's papers on relativity) said something quite illuminating: "A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Example: When I was young I was told that the Catholic Church put Galileo in prison for supporting the heliocentric theory of the universe. What my teachers failed to add was that the Church jailed Galileo at the bidding of scientists working on the geocentric theory of the universe. Scientists who had worked very hard on the geocentric theory were understandably more upset by the heliocentric theory than theologians. See https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-galileo-controversy
That is why I pick my fights. I teach mathematics to economists. I do not hide from my economist colleagues that I am very dubious as to the usefulness of their theories. But I waste no time trying to convince them that my theories are more useful. I do try to isolate them. I explain my economic theories to students and non economists. Note that there is a trend that winners of the prize in economics in honor of Alfred Nobel is going increasingly to economists doing empirical work. This is due to the failure of mainstream economic theory to predict events.
Similarly, I do not waste time trying to convince global warming skeptics that global warming is occurring. I do use probability. I ask them what they think the probability of global warming is. I also nail them for vagueness. If someone talks about "natural temperature variation", I immediately substitute "the will of God". Moreover, I tell them that I will believe that global warming is not occurring through increased greenhouse gas emissions when they provide a mathematical model that explains the earth's change in temperature over time independently from the composition of the atmosphere.
Mathematics is the language of science because of the precision of mathematical statements. A revolution occurred in science (and mathematics) when Newton wrote down a differential equation to describe gravitational attraction.
Of much concern to me is the amount of censorship occurring just about everywhere and the false news disseminated by mainstream media. Because it is so easy to document falsehoods perpetrated by mainstream news media, it is difficult to know who to trust. This makes it easier to get suckered into a
conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Note that Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that the FBI influenced Facebook to censor the (true) Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. This is a major reason that I support substack. I think it is much healthier to have a place where controversial ideas, scientific or otherwise, can be openly debated. Glenn Greenwald who worked for The Guardian when he helped break the Snowden story, helped found The Intercept because of editorial pressure at The Guardian. He resigned from The Intercept because of editorial pressure there and now publishes out of substack. He has documented how mainstream media disseminates false news stories, see for example
Mathematics is the language of science because of the precision of mathematical statements. A revolution occurred in science (and mathematics) when Newton wrote down a differential equation to describe gravitational attraction.
Of much concern to me is the amount of censorship occurring just about everywhere and the false news disseminated by mainstream media. Because it is so easy to document falsehoods perpetrated by mainstream news media, it is difficult to know who to trust. This makes it easier to get suckered into a
conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Note that Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that the FBI influenced Facebook to censor the (true) Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. This is a major reason that I support substack. I think it is much healthier to have a place where controversial ideas, scientific or otherwise, can be openly debated. Glenn Greenwald who worked for The Guardian when he helped break the Snowden story, helped found The Intercept because of editorial pressure at The Guardian. He resigned from The Intercept because of editorial pressure there and now publishes out of substack. He has documented how mainstream media disseminates false news stories, see for example
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so-often,
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-news-outlets-again-confirm,
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard
Matt Orfalea makes videos documenting fake news disseminated by mainstream media: https://rumble.com/search/video?q=orfalea It is a bit shocking to see with what fervor the media can insist a falsehood is true.
Note that I linked Orfalea's rumble channel rather than his youtube channel. I support rumble for the same reason I support substack, no censorship.
I will add that the censorship extends to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Many papers are rejected not for any scientific reason but because either the result is contrary to an accepted result, the references are not those of the referee, or the author is unknown. One only has to look at the difficulties Lynn Margulis encountered in her career.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-news-outlets-again-confirm,
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard
Matt Orfalea makes videos documenting fake news disseminated by mainstream media: https://rumble.com/search/video?q=orfalea It is a bit shocking to see with what fervor the media can insist a falsehood is true.
Note that I linked Orfalea's rumble channel rather than his youtube channel. I support rumble for the same reason I support substack, no censorship.
I will add that the censorship extends to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Many papers are rejected not for any scientific reason but because either the result is contrary to an accepted result, the references are not those of the referee, or the author is unknown. One only has to look at the difficulties Lynn Margulis encountered in her career.
